You might not believe it, but the robots in the video below are singing spontaneously.

Yup. They communicate and teach each other to sing by singing to each other.

Read more about the robots here and here.

To spam or not to spam?

If you’re a WordPress blogger, you likely use Akismet. My blog gets a lot of spam and Akismet kindly gathers it all in one place where I can review it to make sure real comments haven’t been tagged as spam. 

So, I scan a lot of spam and I’ve noticed that comment spam seems different from email spam.

For one thing, it’s a lot longer. And it’s bursting with links. And it contains some (okay, a lot of) inappropriate language. But other parts of these messages remind me of something else … improvised text. 

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We singers have a huge bonus (or albatross, depending on your perspective *wink*) in our improv toolbox — language. That’s right, we get to use words. This excites some of us and terrifies others. From where, after all, are these words supposed to come? (Read on, dear Reader, read on.)

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One of the things I practice in improvising is working with language. At Songtaneous sessions, we play word games with the goal of detaching language from a sequential or consequential, literal context to explore its more poetic, playful and percussive qualities. (I find I do language work best with other people. It helps me circumvent all the rules I make up for myself.)

Long story short(ish), I realized in scanning through the many spam comments I receive each day, that there’s a kind of computerized poetry here.

As an exercise, I took one of today’s spam comments and imagined I was going to use it to create an improvised piece.

My guidelines were pretty simple; I could leave out words and use phrasing (punctuate), but I couldn’t reorder the words. And I didn’t spend a lot of time reviewing the spam first. I tried to let my eye jump to a phrase and flow (albeit totally tangentially in some cases) to the next phrase that grabbed me. Below are my creations.

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Spam-provised Text
[created by deleting words and adding punctuation to today’s spam comment]

i

Nice people nest again catching the drug

them liked will marry

her? spotted horses, him? amoxycillin for trees 

and because only them fixes the hostage

agreed direction

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ii

the grapefruit stallion had false lead

few trees came with human family and better progress

fifty-year-old started crying sloppily

intended back together

another opening back inside

still betrothed had suffered the planet 

maybe this straight back would reverse our sufficient experience

“wait here”

the jaws could make him hush

…

iii

physically far back

long-term memory loss

her straw our pain fading out

seldom good ordinary talent

unsettling way

delightful place

would play over quite pretty

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iv

not merely the simplest brass girl

illie works with that awful burden

concerned about more goblins seen outside

they, the mists

wing onto the smoky sigh

land when close

Sweet Honey in the Rock

As you know, a few weeks ago, I attended a free community workshop presented by Sweet Honey’s Aisha Kahlil. Here (finally!) is my account of that workshop and my brief meeting with Ms. Kahlil.

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Improvising with Aisha Kahlil

The workshop took place after a program celebrating the culmination of a poster design contents at Center for Independent Artists (www.c4ia.org) and included performances by several youth groups. The Sankofa Drummers who opened the program with African drumming were joined later by their dancers — a talented and highly energetic group of young ones from kindergarten to middle school. Voices of Truth and a student gospel choir (sadly the name of their school escapes me) rounded out the pre-workshop performances.

Aisha Kahlil moved the audience quickly and fluidly into a large singing circle and then assigned an (improvised?) pattern to the circle. She deftly added multiple parts and had the whole room (even the deaf and hard of hearing attendees) participating.

(Both Kahlil and Barnwell practice the method of getting people singing promptly. It’s a supportive combination of expecting and assuming that groups are willing and able to sing communally. Diving right in also can be an effective way to avoid the BBHoF.)

Kahlil has an extensive dance and vocal improv background and both these influences permeated her improvisational, high-energy workshop. She used an African drumming pattern to work on rhythmic singing and incorporated African dance moves (at which the Sankofa Dancers excelled and the rest of us happily flailed) into a routine to accompany the piece.

I enjoyed how Kahlil intuitively used the principle of the drum break to move the group between instruction and singing and back again. It cemented the purpose of the break’s function in a clever and practical way. Admittedly, when we were singing, we were never able to implement this quite as well Kahlil demonstrated. And, most of our Midwestern tongues tripped over the syllables and rhythms at first (and again later when we picked up speed).

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Aisha Kahlil (by Joe Beasley)

After the workshop, I pushed myself to go and introduce myself. I wanted to tell Ms. Kahlil that I planned to share her workshop here with you, my loyal readers and I also wanted to compliment her on keeping such a large group engaged throughout her presentation. Kahlil’s facilitation style is similar to my own and observing her direct this group was invaluable.

I would never have guessed that she was such a tiny person. It felt like I towered over her. (I’m sure this is an exaggerated impression, but I rarely tower over anyone!) And I’ve always experienced the Sweet Honey women as larger than life having seen them only in performance. On stage, Kahlil exhibits huge presence and charisma.

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Long story short (okay, not that short since it took me 3 weeks to write it all down), I met two of my a cappella heroines in one weekend.

AND … I got to sing with them. How sweet.